Method & Redman Labeled Modern Day Minstrelsy - 2004-06-30 11:32:34

Two weeks after Method Man and Redman's Method And Red show premiered to mixed reviews, a critic has slammed the sitcom and labeled it Hip-Hop minstrelsy.

In an article published on Black World Today's web site, writer Junious Ricardo Stanton dismisses Mef and Red's sitcom as stereotypical.

The plot lines are juvenile and based on the show I saw offer no redeeming values or messages other than re-enforcing the prevailing message of mainstream corporate media in general and much of commercial Hip Hop in particular: the promotion of wayward irreverence, incivility and disrespect, crass materialism, misogyny and racial stereotypes of the worst kind," Stanton offered in the article.

Tonight's episode centers around Method Man's mom, played by Anna Maria Horsford, and her job as a toll booth clerk where she's worked for 25 years. In one scene, Method Man and Horsford along with a crew of her colleagues are crowded into her toll booth in celebration of her years of service.

The awkward sketch ends with a dry laugh track after Horsford gleefully accepts her boss' worthless "thanks" as a reward for her years of service. [Watch It: Windows Media Player Broadband | Dial-Up]

With plotlines like this as ammunition, The Black World Today's Stanton then goes on to compare Method & Red to previously criticized programs like Amos 'n Andy and questions the NAACP for not protesting the sitcom.

"Watching this mess, it is hard to believe in 1953 the NAACP actually petitioned CBS demanding they take 'Amos 'n Andy,' a television minstrel show that centered around the lives of big city blacks, off the air," Stanton revealed. "Yet, fifty years later the organization says absolutely nothing about a show like 'Method Man and Red.'"